Business Development in PE

$180k/yr just 3 years out of undergrad with those hours? Dang man, that's an awesome seat so big congrats. You are doing better comp wise than most BD-focused PE analysts with the exception of ones at the top shops like GA/Insight and you blow them all away on hourly. Frankly, I'd keep a role like that if sales were my thing because from what I've heard talking to older sales guys it continues to scale + you often get equity the more senior you get. A truly greats salesperson at a scaled SaaS company can make more money in the early-to-mid stages of their career than a PE BD unless they're getting carry on a deal-by-deal basis, and even then it takes time to realize vs sales there's a higher % cash all-in comp.

Now PE BD for portfolio operations is a different thing than PE BD for the actual fund. I'm pretty sure I know the fund you're talking about given that description and comp range so the difference in this case is w/ the portfolio operations team you will be working with either specific 1 company or a groups of companies under a specific sector the firm is already invested in. You will be verticalizing for a year or two helping identify potential M&A or partnership targets within that sector, spearheading that outreach, and bringing those conversations into the funnel w/ the appropriate company in the portfolio. Think of this as in a way comparable to the value-add consulting some PEs do but in this case you're supporting their corp dev/BD function instead of sales/marketing/ops. Still a good role, especially if it's for a top branded shop, but not most people are thinking of when they say PE BD so it's harder to describe what hours/comp trajectory looks like but I would imagine at least in terms of hours it's similar to regular PE BD.

PE BD in terms of what most people will be referring to is when you are at a firm with it's own proprietary sourcing engine, most often found in MM funds but you'll see some UMMs and even certain divisions of MFs have a sourcing component. You will spend either all or the vast majority of your time cold outreaching to build relationships with potential targets and bankers via email/call/LinkedIn/etc. to identify new platforms for the fund or add-on investments for the existing platforms. In many cases also helping process the first info to come in from a data share acting as a sort of frontline before things really move into serious execution (e.g. I currently spend ~75% sourcing / 20% execution / 5% portfolio work). In some cases firms will have an entirely separate execution team that takes over once data is shared which favors people from a banking/consulting background vs PE BD tends to prefer people with more of a sales/BD background (obviously). Execution generally has higher all-in expected comp through the junior levels but has a hard cap to it vs if you deliver on BD the only limit you have is time and your fund's ability to close (e.g. assuming $80k base, if you're making $60k-100k every time you close a platform/large add-on say you have a monster year and manage to close 2-3, you'd be making $260k-380k+). Economics are typically based on basis points for $Xm equity deployed and generally get better as you become more senior (some firms do have a capped per-deal bonus for analysts/associates but this is less common). If you can determine what a firm's average check size for platforms/add-ons is it's pretty easy to back into what your expected comp will be assuming you bring in at least 1-2 deals/yr (which is what most people are targeting once you're ramped). Some firms also offer a general bonus pool so that if any deal closes all of the BD team gets a piece (so if you're a top closer, everyone will love you and you'll make bank).

Hour wise is pretty variable by the firm you're at but I'd say 50-65+ is a fair range you can expect to see throughout the year depending on where you are in the transaction lifecycle/whether your firm bifurcates execution and sourcing. My firm doesn't so I've had a number of weeks that enter into the 70+ territory but I can probably count on my fingers the number of all-nighters/past midnight grinds I've had the last 3 years (this excludes nights where I've chosen to stay up to work on something that realistically could've waited). Compensation scales great if you deliver but is a bit lumpy and can take longer to realize compared to typical sales. Deals don't all follow a predictable time scale like when you're selling the same SaaS product over and over. For a personal example, I've had 1 whale of a deal in the pipeline for 2+ years now that's worth nearly $400k on it's own but the founder keeps pushing things further out for various reasons, so it feels like I'm stuck treading water until he changes tune. Meanwhile a deal I did in another year took <9 months from initial conversation to closing, got wired out within 30 days of the final docs getting signed.

To finally answer your question:

Ideally I want to make as much money as possible per hours of work I put in. Will this be better than SaaS sales for that?

In terms of marginal compensation in the short-mid term, probably not. SaaS sales when you have a good process IMO offers one of the best W/L/Comp balances there is among modern white collar professions since making comfortably over 100k working <50hrs a week is hard to find early on in any career. Long-term PE BD definitely outscales in total comp if you have the comparable level of performance vs your peers, but you're never going to be working <40hrs a week that I promise you. IMO there's more to be learned though being a dealmaker than a sales guy so I think the extra time requirement is warranted, but I recognize my bias.